Not one Free Lance Trainer who is totally dependent on only trainings

Hi, everyone. This is Raajh Shekhar, a Corporate Trainer, author, and life coach. The other day, when I was in a friendly discussion with one of my trainer friends, he expressed an opinion. I was curious to know how far it is true according to all of you.

"There is not one freelance trainer who is totally dependent only on training assignments (strictly no other income source) and is financially in a good position and happy with all other areas of life."

Please share your ideas so that they would be useful for new aspiring trainers.

Dear Raj Shekhar,

I am a little surprised that this question has come from a corporate trainer and life coach. The person who teaches others should be well aware of the market in which he/she is working. Anyway, replies to your questions are as below:

a) Whether to depend only on freelancing is a moot question. Few freelancers, including this humble freelancer, supplement training with consulting. Going further, whether to depend only on one subject or on multiple subjects is one's personal decision.

b) "Financial good position": There is no direct answer for this because what is your "good" may not be my good, or what is your "good" could be someone else's "very good". Someone gets support because of factors like caste, creed, religion, education institution, etc. This support helps in elevating the financial position. Someone does not get any support. Someone is ready to give kickbacks to the HR/Training professionals, for someone, it is against his/her personal values. Therefore, do not just look at the financial position. Value a person who out of greed did not compromise personal or family values.

c) In India, especially in the post-liberalization era, success means financial wealth. Nobody bothers how this wealth was acquired. This very greed has corrupted the society. If you read newspapers, you will find that a few oil companies bribed the government employees of the oil ministry to gain insight on the decisions taken by the ministry. All are big business houses. Do you approve this money-making out of deceit? Who is better for the country - a freelancer who does fair business or a corrupt business house that grows astronomically but with evil practices?

d) "All other areas of life": Which are the areas? Everyone's problems are different. Sometimes family issues drag one's business. On the contrary, someone's business grows because of tremendous family support.

e) Again, it depends on what kind of freelancing one does. Does that subject have the lowest market value? Does the freelancer have uniqueness, i.e., product differentiation? Has he/she done any research on the subject area or depends on the material downloaded from the internet?

f) Not many freelancers know how to market their talent. They forever depend on the training or consulting companies. Sometimes metamorphosis from parasite to a full-fledged biological unit has to happen. Few do it, and few do not do it.

Final comments: Freelancing is a matter of one's conscious choice. For many freelancers, it is a matter of personal values. They consider that it is better to be a freelancer than be a broker of few services. To grow one's business, one requires business acumen, an innovative mindset, negotiation skills, and so on. Few have it, and few may not have it. Hence the uneven growth.

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

Friends.
I strongly disagree.
This view expressed is probably because:-
1. The one in question is professionally weak, or
2. his failure as freelancer, or
3. He is yet to come across a successful freelancer.
I am a freelancer.
Education, experience and exposure made me one.
As a professional and highly placed HSE manager I was paid a handsome salary and other benefits not in India but elsewhere. At an appropriate occasion I choose to be a freelancer – training and consultancy. Here only I could realize what I am capable of and what my worth is. I am purely on to training and consultancy and seek pleasure being a freelancer. This is probably because of my mindset too.
There are many, many successful and happy freelancers who agree with me too.
Regards
Kesava Pillai

Thank you, sirs. You gave a wonderful kick-start to the topic. I humbly submit that it is an opinion received by me. It's not mine. I, on and off, heard from some trainers. So I thought this topic will attract ideas of experts which can be good guidance for aspiring trainers. Thank you for taking the discussion in the right direction. I invite other friends also to participate.

I personally thank Divaker sir and Pillai sir for their valuable information. I could see the experience and expertise in their honest and transparent posts.

Thank you, Mr. Pillai and Mr. Divaker, for the valuable inputs. I chose to be a trainer after my retirement. However, for a freelance soft skill trainer, the income may not be steady if one restricts oneself to just corporate training. Hence, I have trained myself to work with CBSE School Faculty, College Students and Faculty, and also Corporate Faculty. The academic cycle differs from the Corporate financial/performance appraisal/training cycle, keeping one busy all the time. To further supplement, I am also involved in HR Consultancy, as Mr. Divaker indicated.

There are some trainers, one of them in Bangalore, who turned out to be a broker (I don't want to name him in a public forum like this). He accepts too many programs, shares them with other trainers, fixes the training charges himself taking a cut from the client, negotiates and cuts down the charges from the trainer, and further takes Rs. 500 from the trainer as his fee. I became aware of this just a couple of days ago. Is this also a kind of additional source of income (though unethical in my point of view, as I never take money from another trainer)? My aim of involvement in consultancy and training is primarily to keep myself mentally engaged and challenged. Secondly, I strongly feel that official retirement (from this world) is a long way off, and in the process, I earn some additional income to spend more on medicine and less on food.